A touching tribute to Ren Hang, early Polaroids from Richard Kern, California’s empty pools captured by skater Tino Razo, and the most realistic depictions of love, photographed

From the lead up to Christmas until Valentine’s Day, we are force fed images of unrealistically happy couples that feel completely detached from the majority of our own experiences with love and lust. In order to dismantle this, and in honour of Saint Valentine – who apparently never even existed – we turned to some of our favourite photographers who have documented the reality of what love can look like – from drug addiction, love as we get older, and heartbreak.

No matter how many times we read those two words – President Trump – it never gets easier. How can we deal with it? It’s a question that feels like it will never be answered until he is out of the White House and this weird dream is over. However, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Andrew Kass shot exclusive portraits of young people in New York alongside photos of inside city hall as an exploration into vulnerability.

Skater and photographer Tino Razo published an anthology of the photos he’s taken over the years of California’s empty pools. Tripping between abandoned houses in the Hollywood Hills to Judy Garland’s old residence, the book is a sun-soaked homage to freedom.

You can feel the energy pumping through Jim Jocoy’s unseen photos from San Fran’s punk scene in the 70s. Unfolding as a movie would, his just-released book Order of Appearance (TBW Books) journeys through the ceremony of getting ready (and suitably pissed) to the party and, naturally, the after party.

Dancer on Broadway, 1977Courtesy of Casemore Kirkeby Gallery, San Francisco

On the corner of four of the city’s busiest intersections, photographer and LA native Sean Maung set up a makeshift photo studio to capture the most colourful characters he came across. The results are a mix of the city’s hustlers, rappers (such as Vince Staples) and party-goers.

Last month, Wolfgang Tillmans’ latest show at the Tate (strictly, not his retrospective) opened. At the press unveiling, he announced that the show was a return to him as an artist, rather than a political figure that we have become increasingly familiar with. The works span from the beginning of his career, with magazine shoots to large scale sculptural-slash-photographic works.

Internet it-kid and model turned art director opened his first exhibition last month at New York’s Milk, alongside collaborator and friend, photographer Noah Dillon. Despite their own online followings, in an interview with Dazed Digital, the pair spoke about the importance of forgoing follower counts for more genuine voices when casting their projects – such as lookbooks for Virgil Abloh’s OFF WHITE – and what’s next for the duo.

Last year, Richard Kern hosted an exhibition on New York’s East Village to showcase a series of unseen Polaroids that captured the in-between moments of the work that we know best from the provocateur. Due to its success, he has just released a book and shared more of the mesmerising images with us.

Currently on show until May at New York’s Internation Center of Photography, Perpetual Revolution: The Image and Social Change, aims to look at how the social image is both reporting and producing social change. From Isis to the civil rights movement, Dazed Digital’s “I Want A Dyke For President” video featuring Mykki Blanco also features. We spoke with some of the curators here.

Two weeks ago, news surfaced that incredibly talented, young photographer Ren Hang had passed away. While things couldn’t have looked brighter in his career, tragically Ren suffered terribly from depression. The otherworldly images he created in his nine year career, live on as his legacy. This is my tribute to him.